... now this is something very interesting and close to our hearts ...

Getting Political About Feral Cats

Becky Robinson

Becky Robinson, national director of Alley Cat Allies, has changed a lot of minds - and policies - about feral cats. It hasn't always been easy. This week she offers advice on how to win over reluctant government officials, animal control and your neighbors.

Introduction from Becky Robinson:

Are you tired of spending your time, energy, and money on neutering feral cats and managing their colonies, only to have animal control or public health tell you that you are part of the problem? Or worse, citing you for frivolous acts of threatening public health by harboring animals? Are you frustrated by fruitless attempts to get local authorities to recognize that what you and others are doing is the solution, and to get them to work with you instead of against you?

I know how you feel. Since 1990, I have trapped hundreds of feral cats and tamed and found homes for dozens of feral kittens. I have organized and administered two spay/neuter clinics for stray and feral cats. I co-founded a national organization that has helped people in every state to establish non-lethal control for feral cats.

Yet, I live in a metropolitan area where some animal control agencies still do not endorse Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and do not consider the committed efforts of hundreds of feral cat caretakers and trappers to be part of the solution to feline overpopulation.

I'm here to tell you that it can get better for all of us. If you find the prospect of changing how your community is run to be a little scary, I assure you that it can be done -- is being done -- in many places, every day, by people like you.

In fact, there are communities, both large and small, where elected officials and animal control management have been convinced that traditional trap-and-remove schemes cannot continue and they have embraced non-lethal control. In some, they even finance TNR programs now in place.

Throughout this week, I'll answer specific questions about how you can get through to and work with local animal control, public health, and elected officials -- how to get political and make a real difference for animals in your community.

How to talk to neighborhood committees about TNR

Question from Carrie:
I have a feral colony living in a townhouse community. All but two are sterilized (very trap-smart girls). Their shots are up-to-date. A neighbor has been complaining and the neighborhood committee has decided they can trap them and take to ACO.

My question specifically is: Who is the best person to talk with about what happens to the cats if and when they are trapped and taken to ACO? If they are ear-tipped and I have shot records and pictures can I get them back? Talking to the neighbor is not an option, as she won't listen.

Response from Becky:
First of all, let me tell you how great it is that you have already had the cats vetted, vaccinated for rabies, and eartipped for identification. Now you need to organize the cats' veterinary medical records and make copies of them. Do you have a completed Tracking Sheet - a log of all the cats in the colony including those that you trapped and adopted? This is excellent evidence of your commitment and professionalism to present to the property management.

Do not stop feeding the cats. In the event the neighborhood committee sets traps soon, without you knowing, the cats will not be as interested in going in traps the second time around especially if you continue to see that they have plenty of food at their feeding station.

You indicate that one woman is doing the complaining. I suggest you approach the neighborhood committee and ask for an opportunity (soon) to explain all that you have done. This is a good way to educate them about TNR and to demonstrate that you truly are the solution, not the problem. In these situations, it's a good idea to take someone along with you, someone who understands your work and cares about the cats, too. This person can act as reinforcement if the discussion starts to get heated or disorganized or if you just need moral support. Two documents on our website, www.alleycat.org, may be of help when you have this meeting - "Making Feral Cats Welcome in Your Community" and "How to Talk to Anyone about TNR."

Ask the neighborhood committee specifically what the woman is complaining about. The most important thing here is to find out what's really bothering her. Frequently, such complaints can be fixed with a little positive action. "Making Feral Cats Welcome" describes several situations that can be resolved with simple actions. For example, one neighbor was upset that the cats were walking on his truck. When the caretakers purchased a vehicle cover for him, it settled the matter and no more complaints.

You need to ask the committee to not call animal control. Ask them to work with you and to give you time to resolve the situation. Tell them that you are consulting with two national organizations (Alley Cat Allies & Best Friends) that have dealt with feral cat colonies all over the country and there is every reason to believe you can come up with a solution that will be satisfactory.

Please let us know how this works out. Of course, your goal is to prevent any trapping to occur by the animal control. Depending on how your local municipality is structured, you may want to call animal control directly. But be careful--before you contact them, find out what their policies are. Often times, they are delighted to not set traps if they know the issue is being resolved and if they are made aware that the cats are sterilized (not producing kittens), vaccinated against rabies, and being cared for.

Side note: as far as the last two "hard to trap cats" go, contact ACA directly to learn a few new tricks to get them trapped. We have fact sheets on this specific subject.

Presenting TNR to animal control advisory board

Question from Krista:
The Health Department of my rural county approved a proposal to ask the County Commissioners to appoint an Animal Control Advisory Board to establish policies and procedures for operation of the Animal Control Unit. The Animal Control Unit has operated throughout its existence under state guidelines but now has concerns about potential difficulties if the Officers actions were to be challenged. I was appointed along with 11 other individuals.

My county is a rural community with many, many free-roaming dogs and cats. Cats are not held at all, due to lack of space, just euthanized immediately if not passed off to the local vet who tries to find homes for as many as possible.

We were just appointed last week but the Health Director has indicated that she wants to move very quickly and have regulations in place in 3-4 months. I would like to have facts and figures to present as alternatives. Can you please help me with ideas and how to approach these folks without being dismissed from the start as being too idealistic? My main concern is to make a difference for animals in my community.

Response from Becky:
Congratulations on taking a position on your community's Animal Control Advisory Board. This is an opportunity and an important first step in the Health Department and County Commissioners learning how other municipalities are reducing their euthanasia rate and increasing adoptions. But you need to realize that it's going to take some time to research, organize, and implement the new policies and procedures your group is tasked with developing.

Several programs can be implemented in a matter of a few weeks or months. Others will take longer, but change can occur this year and the success you experience will keep the momentum going to see real benefits to the animals. The most positive aspect of this is the health department and animal control agency's willingness to work with you. Nurture that relationship!

Now I'm going to suggest you do some serious homework:

Study the websites of organizations that have learned how to work with animal control. Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society, AzCats in Arizona, and Neighborhood Cats in New York City.

Also look for press reports and profiles of progressive communities on both the Best Friends (www.bestfriends.org) and ACA websites (www.alleycat.org).

For example, the Richmond (VA) SPCA now has a working relationship with that city's animal control agency. The Richmond SPCA has become a completely no-kill facility and, through several innovative programs, they prevent hundreds of animals a year from ever entering any of the local shelters. When stray and feral cats are involved, the first change they made to stop loaning traps to the community for trapping stray and feral cats and kittens. Clearly, this is one of the highest categories of animals killed in our countries shelters.

If at all possible, register to attend the next No More Homeless Pets conference, click HERE to see the upcoming dates. This conference will give you access to presenters from all over the country who have been instrumental in turning their town's animal control around. Ed Boks from Maricopa County (AZ) Animal Care and Control is one of them, and Ed can give you some solid suggestions. When you return, you'll have concrete, practical ideas to propose to your health director.

Conduct online research. There's a lot of good material out there. For example, ACA's fact sheet Reduce your Euthanasia Rate gives step-by-step instructions on how a shelter can re-direct "complaint" calls and how to start a pilot program for non-lethal control including Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR).

Your county commissioners might be interested in knowing jurisdictions in which cats are not held, but are killed immediately run a much higher risk killing an owned pet, which can be a direct path to a lawsuit.

Prepare yourself to educate those around you about the benefits of TNR. Citizens who "just want the cats gone" must learn about the process and the benefits of a non-breeding population of felines. When there is little or no sterilization of felines, citizens often only see the growing population and endless litters of kittens. But when there are active spay/neuter programs, their concerns diminish greatly. One suggestion to offer your health director is to develop a program with local veterinarians where spay/neuter is offered on a weekly or regular basis and then help promote this program so citizens will take advantage of it.

Good luck. We are all anxious to hear about your progress in the coming months!

Overcoming the fear of rabies to promote TNR

Question from Ramona:
The most recurring objection of TNR that I get from officials is, "What about the rabies booster every year? Are you going to continue to retrap every cat every year and booster them?" In the southeastern part of the USA there is a fair amount of rabies and it is an emotional issue. Although, in three years, only 3 cats have been found to test positive for rabies, and these were domestic cats.

Response from Becky:
We are well aware of the instinctive fear of rabies that exists in many parts of the country. No one underestimates the serious nature of rabies or the damage it continues to do in other countries. The facts, however, are that, in the U.S., rabies is not a public health crisis and the fear of rabies far outweighs the actual threat from this disease.

Here's an important but little known statistic that may be of interest to your public health officials. This comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. From 1990-2002 (that's 12 years), there were only 36 human cases of rabies (deaths) in the United States. At least seven of those cases originated outside the U.S. None was acquired from a cat.

Compare this to West Nile Virus, a disease we often associate with animals but less so with people: In 2002 (that's just one year), there were 4,171 human cases of West Nile Virus in the United States that resulted in 277 deaths.

Also, be aware that virtually no feral cat TNR programs in place around the country require a second rabies vaccination for cats in managed colonies. One reason for this is rabies immunity far outlasts the "shelf life" indicated on the vaccine label.

According to "Experimental Rabies in Cats: Immune Response and Persistence of Immunity," a study conducted in 1981, "Complete protection was observed after more than 3 years following a single vaccination." In other words, a one-year rabies vaccine maintained immunity for a full three years, and probably a lot longer, but the study was concluded after three years so we don't know for sure.

If a rabies epidemic is of paramount concern to your public officials, they need to look into vaccination of wildlife that may be reservoirs for rabies. Oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programs are having tremendous success in eradicating rabies among raccoons, fox, and coyotes in several areas of the country. Together with vaccination (yes, a single vaccination) of feral cats, the likelihood of humans being exposed to rabies is dramatically reduced.

Your best course of action is to keep solid vaccination records for all the cats you manage and educate your public officials. Keep in mind, a community TNR program ALWAYS provides greater protection from rabies than doing nothing.

Getting people who call for help involved in TNR

Question from Linda:
How can small groups best build community support for the nonlethal approach? We seem to run into a lot of situations where if we just go and do a project "for" someone, we don't get any long-term support or community change. How do you suggest we make it easy for people and still get their buy-in to responsibility over the long term?

Response from Becky:
Carrying out TNR "for" someone only demonstrates that they are not the responsible party. The most effective and long-lived TNR programs are those that actively involve feeders from the start. People who are feeding cats often call a TNR group for help. If the group simply takes care of the cats, these feeders may never commit to the philosophy of TNR. Once the group has finished the job (for the moment), the feeders can just quietly keep on doing what they have been doing for years, which is likely to result in more kittens being born.

Yet how do you convince them? People don't "buy into" something they don't own - you must make them own the TNR process. Set limits on how much hands-on work your group is willing to do. Try convincing the feeders to get the traps from your group and teach them how to use the traps. Provide information about low- or no-cost s/n clinics. Break it to them gently that this is their responsibility, and remind them how many kittens they will have next spring if they don't TNR the cats this year.

An obvious exception would be if a person were elderly, disabled, or otherwise incapable of carrying out TNR on his or her own. But in the majority of cases, people can do this themselves with a little training and encouragement. The bonus is that people are more committed to something that they themselves did. Because the feeders trapped and sterilized the cats, they become far more committed to the cats' long-term care than if someone just came out and did the work for them.

And they frequently "get hooked," which is no surprise. TNR is about more than helping the cats - it's about people making a connection between the colony they care for and all the rest of the feral cats in their town. Not everyone will be persuaded, but a lot of people will be.

Be sure to keep those you help connected with TNR by sending them your newsletter and periodically contacting them. Once you have trained and recruited these people, many could become valuable members of your group and help other people in the community as well. A very helpful resource on this subject is Bonney Brown's booklet, "Grassroots Organizing to Help Feral Cats," currently available from Alley Cat Allies for $4 (S/H included).

... this one many of us need ...

Dealing with cat haters who call animal control

Question from Cindy:
We have a person going around calling in "anonymous" complaints to Vector Control re: "flies, cat feces and fleas" in places where he knows (or suspects) the property owner has given permission for TNRM. If he sees the cats are still there a few months later he calls in another one.

This just happened to one of my colonies. The inspector did not find a problem and the file was closed but it has caused a lot of trouble for us with the property owners. They now want the cats removed from their property rather than risk the Department of Health showing up at their door again.

I have heard that people who don't like feral cats are suggesting that people make Vector Control complaints as a way to get rid of feral cat colonies. Have you heard of anything like this and do you have any suggestions for caretakers on how to fix it?

Response from Becky:
Are you certain these complaints are really anonymous? Few animal control agencies accept truly anonymous complaints. At a minimum, they know the number and location of those complaining. However, they may be keeping this information confidential.

It seems as though the challenge here is for you to get ahead of those making complaints. Once again, it's a matter of educating everyone in a position to affect your work.

Start with vector control by asking to meet with them about the condition of your colonies. Bring photos of your managed colonies and clean feeding stations, and copies of the cats' medical records. You can do this without disclosing the locations of colonies. Show the responsible agencies that you have X number of colonies completely controlled and managed, and that the current population of cats is lower than before you implemented TNR. For example, you found adoptive homes for the five kittens and two friendly cats in the colony, thereby reducing the total number of cats by seven. (This is another reason why it is so important to keep accurate and up-to-date records.)

Ask vector control to call you first when they do get a complaint. Be clear that you want an opportunity to find out what the concerns are and to resolve them constructively. It's in vector control's interest to have these complaints stop, so try hard to develop a good working relationship with them.

Alley Cat Allies' fact sheet "Making Feral Cats Welcome in Your Community" will give you ideas about ways to resolve complaints. Share it with the people you work with and make sure they all know that the best defense of feral cat colonies is a positive, well-informed offense.

Finally, remember that you cannot change everyone's mind. There are true cat haters out there and they will not be convinced that what you are doing is right. Your challenge is to find a way to co-exist with them while keeping the cats safe. Good luck!

When animal control wants to kill ferals as predators

Question from Pat in WY:
In our state, any free-roaming cat is classified, under state law, as a "predatory animal." This exempts all stray and feral cats from Wyoming's anti-cruelty laws and makes them sitting ducks. Essentially, any form of torture, torment, or killing, is legal in this state for non-owned loose cats (or even for owned but non-tagged or those not clearly identified). I drafted a bill to remove "stray cat" from the predatory animal list in 2003, but while it passed the House Committee, it never made it out on the House Floor. I plan to reintroduce a similar bill in 2005, but in the meanwhile, many of our outside cats are vulnerable.

Most animal control officers want cats left on the predatory animal list, so they can trap and euthanize cats they deem "feral," without having to adhere to a holding period; and ranchers may "control" populations of feral and stray cats via the bullet (or any other) method. Those of us pushing this bill emphasized that problematic cats could still be controlled, if "stray cat" were removed from the predatory animal list, albeit controlled humanely, but the ACOs and Audubon people came out vehemently against this legislation. They cited the large numbers of songbirds that are preyed upon by cats, using a study from Wisconsin that showed up at the Committee hearing. Committee members therefore removed "stray cat" and replaced it with "feral cat," as if it were always possible to tell the difference!

Do you know of any other state that lists cats as predatory wildlife? And what would you suggest we do in the meanwhile to protect cats in this situation? TNR is hard to sell in Wyoming, but I plan to work on a campaign, locally, in the near future. I brought it up once, and our local ACO came out swinging, saying it was illegal to trap, and then return, cats within city limits. (You already answered one of her concerns about rabies prevention with a single vaccination. That was very helpful.)

Response from Becky:
You have your work cut out for you. I believe everyone knows that there is still a wild-wild-west attitude in parts of the U.S. Let me first say that carrying out TNR in the city limits is probably not illegal, despite what your ACO says. There are many jurisdictions with "no-dumping pets" laws in place. Some ACOs confuse Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) where caretakers continue to monitor and feed the cats, with abandonment. In Las Vegas, they determined that TNR is absolutely not considered abandonment and TNR is now carried out daily.

Now, about the larger issue... States where cats are "predatory wildlife" or domestic animals still face the difficult task of documenting cruelty and then enforcing anti-cruelty statutes. Your plan to organize and launch a campaign is in order. Try to develop to a broad-based coalition of diverse interests for whom this issue may be their only common ground. There are many people everywhere, in your state, too, who support humane and nonlethal care and control of animals, including cats. Forming a coalition will help leverage publicity and educational outreach. This is going to take time and a lot of work, but you sound up to it.

Please read ACA's white paper, "The Strategic Campaign for Change" (http://www.alleycat.org/pdf/StrategicPlanning.pdf), which outlines the four primary stages of an advocacy campaign. And if at all possible, attend a No More Homeless Pets conference (scheduled for April 25-27 in southern California, and Oct. 24-27 in Philadelphia). The speakers and participants in these conferences have the expertise you need to tap into to make your campaign a success.

There are so many myths about feral cats that still drive the decisions of officials and animal control officers. Predation is one such myth. Please refer to one of the other questions on today's forum regarding the truth about predation, feral cats, and wildlife habitat destruction. And, please keep Alley Cat Allies and Best Friends informed of your efforts. We are glad to advise you as you develop and carry out this campaign.

Convincing board members to accept TNR who are concerned about predation issues

Question from Franny:
I work for a humane society that has the contract for animal control in our county. The feral cats here have been identified as the number one animal-related problem in the public view (with different viewpoints from both ends of the spectrum). I feel it is important that our organization take the lead on supporting TNR as not only a more humane approach to controlling feral cat populations, but as a way to reduce our animal control problems in the long run.

However, I have been met with a great deal of resistance from board members and staff. I am interested in ways that I can convince people WITHIN our organization that TNR is not a "radical" idea. One issue brought up by one of our board members is that feral cats endanger the bird population (we have a number of threatened species here on our island).

So my questions has two points - one, do you have any recommendations as to how I can prove the "validity" of TNR to animal control veterans and resistant board members, and two, do you know where I can find any statistics or studies on the effects of feral cat colonies on bird populations? Thanks for all the good work you do!

Response from Becky:
TNR is practiced by thousands of individuals and groups in every state in the U.S. and many countries throughout the world and both statistics and scientific studies are available. What you need to do is educate your animal control veterans and resistant board members about what's going on. Many long-time shelter personnel have a hard time accepting the idea of feral cats remaining outdoors, but the cats are already there, so it boils down to three choices:

Leave the cats alone, which is inhumane and how the problem of feral cat overpopulation started.
Trap and remove (eradicate), which is also inhumane and, as has been proven over decades of practice, doesn't work.

Nonlethal control, a proactive full management plan to sterilize, vaccinate, and care for feral cat colonies, while finding homes for tame strays and kittens.

As for educational materials, ACA's video, "The Humane Solution", is a powerful public policy tool that outlines the benefits of TNR and profiles jurisdictions where TNR has made a difference for the cats and the entire community. On the ACA website (www.alleycat.org) you can find fact sheets and advocacy materials covering almost every subject touching on feral cats. They can all be downloaded and printed out.

A couple of examples of where TNR works include: Maricopa County (AZ), where the County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution designating their Animal Care & Control's FELIX (Feral Education and Love Instead of Ex-termination) program the "officially approved means to solving feral cat related problems in Maricopa County."

The Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society (MRFRS) is endorsed by Newburyport, MA, public officials. TNR is a key component of their work. MRFRS has systematically sterilized and maintained feral cat colonies, tamed and placed stray cats and feral kittens, and educated the public on the importance of sterilizing companion animals. When they began, there were 300 cats on the waterfront. Today, there are 23. No kittens have been born there since the mid-1990s. MRFRS's TNR program is so effective that concerns have risen over the growing rat population.

And now, about predation... Please read Feral Cats on the Firing Line in the Info Section of Alley Cat Allies' website. As this article points out, every major, reputable study has shown that claims to cat predation affecting bird or wildlife populations are wholly overstated. Cats are predators, but habitat loss is the leading factor in the decline of birds, followed by over trapping, drought, and pesticides. Cats are noticeably absent from the list.

Set a goal to convince your humane society that they are the leaders in the arena and that the sooner a program is launched, the sooner they will experience solid results. That will be all the evidence they need.

This is a good piece !

__________________
xxxxx Saribaiduri @ sedap nama tu aku suker xxxxx

Let's Stand Together And Celebrate Our Domestic Cats Day- 31/12/2008 !

Yeah, Suzy, I also like what I am reading nie ...

... wow, found some more goodies, I extracted and pasted kat sini for easier reading becos most of us end up not taking the trouble to follow hyperlinks and miss some goodies ...

This piece below offers hope and ideas becos at one time some forumers here were complaining about SPCA's kill policy.

With these information, we all hope that our local animal shelters as well as the government and local/municipal councils will change their policies to no-kill and actively promote humane, compassionate and nurturing communities throughout the nation.

To Kill or Not to Kill?

By Michael Mountain

"No-kill shelters sound great," writes a lady from Carmel, California, in a letter to Best Friends. "But where do all the other animals go: the huge overflow our SPCA must handle? I need to continue to assist [our local] SPCA in our attempt to solve the problem."

There has often been a certain tension between traditional humane societies that are involved in euthanizing the animals they receive into their care, and the growing no-kill movement.

Back in the 1970s, when Best Friends was in its early days, the no-kill philosophy was largely derided by the mainstream. Most foundations ruled out giving funds to "irresponsible" shelters that didn't kill their animals. Some still do. ("You're just warehousing them. You're not making a real difference.") But much has changed in the last 20 years. And the time has come for all traditional shelters to adopt the no-kill philosophy.

Best Friends had its origins in a few friends visiting their local humane society once a month and taking home as many of the animals as possible who were scheduled to be destroyed. We would rehabilitate these "unadoptables," and find good homes for as many as possible. Of course, there were always some who simply couldn't be placed, for whatever reason. Those unadoptables became the founders of the sanctuary.

The two ladies who ran the humane society we visited each month in those early days were always depressed as euthanasia day approached. These tireless, kind people, who only wanted to nurture suffering animals, found themselves in the hopeless position of having to kill them. There seemed no way out.

In 1989, animal lover and commentator Ed Duvin wrote a landmark article that highlighted this dark paradox and served as a wake-up call to the humane community overall. Underlying the entire "humane" movement and its "shelters," he said, "is the dark secret that it is, in part, little more than a vast killing machine."

Ed Duvin's article became the subject of much discussion, and many traditional shelters began focusing more on spay/neuter and adoption programs, and on community education. Some of the nation's biggest SPCAs began to switch to a no-kill policy. One of the earliest of these was the San Francisco SPCA. They switched to a no-kill policy themselves,and then started working to prevent any homeless animal in the city from having to be destroyed.

At the first annual "No-Kills in the '90s" conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1995, Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, described what should be the essential difference between a humane society or SPCA and the city animal control department:

"Humane work and animal control are parallel pursuits... yet serve different functions. Animal control solves animal-related problems for taxpayers and voters. Humane societies promote the betterment of humanity through encouraging kindness."

Among all of us who are involved in animal care, we have achieved great things in recent years. According to Animal People, euthanasias are down from 17 million per year in 1987 to about 5 million last year. Neutering rates have climbed to 65 percent for dogs and 85 percent for cats.

The time is coming for humane organizations to remove themselves altogether from the business of having to kill the unwanted animals of irresponsible citizens.

People who simply want to do good for the animals should not be required to take on the job of killing them. This terrible burden is unfair to kind volunteers everywhere who want to nurture life.

The sad work of putting down homeless animals may still have to be one of the jobs of a city animal control department. It is not a pleasant job, no matter who has the job of doing it, but killing animals is not the work of a humane group. Nor should it ever have to be supported by the contributions of members whose passion is to nurture life and love.

Converting to a no-kill policy at a shelter requires building a close and harmonious relationship with the local animal control department. Shelters wanting to make these arrangements can get help and advice from the many no-kill facilities that have already done it and are now working cooperatively with city animal control. Here at Best Friends, we count the local animal control officers our friends and partners.

The light grows brighter and we can actually see the end of the tunnel. The goal of Best Friends, and all of us in the humane movement, is to help bring about a time when there are no more homeless animals.

When we first wrote, just a few years ago, that our goal was to bring an end to the problem of pet overpopulation by the end of this century, it seemed like a wonderful dream, if perhaps a slightly over-optimistic one!

But that goal is now closer than we could have imagined, and the flame burns brighter than ever. We are all working towards a time when there are No More Homeless Pets, and when every newborn can be guaranteed a life of love and happiness.